spoo@utcsrgv.UUCP (Suk Lee) (01/12/84)
Well, after living with the dbx NX-40
for a while, I'm going to have to
withdraw some of the earlier
enthusiastic comments I made.
The NX-40 does have a fair amount of
residual hiss, although not so much so
that I would return it (which I ended
up doing). What is problematic is that
the thing *HUMS* in the right channel.
I've had three (count 'em, THREE) of
the things which did this, so I think
it's an inherent flaw in the design.
From fiddling around with cabling, it
seems that a small level of hum is
injected into the signal path just
ahead of the right channel encoder.
The result is that on quiet passages, a
LOT of hum (because it's been expanded)
goes onto your tape. On playback, it's
not noticeable except on very quiet
passages -- not very loud, but loud
enough to irritate the heck out of me.
The hum doesn't come from the decoding
stages because: it's signal dependant,
and it's totally absent when you set
the thing for disc decoding.
Perhaps the store just had a bad batch:
anyone out there have similar
experiences? To test for the hum
conclusively, disconnect the NX-40 to
amplifier connections, connect the
NX-40 tape output to the tape input on
your amplifier and have a listen.
There should be a fairly loud hum on
the right channel.
For those in the Toronto area, I'd like
to plug Bay-Bloor Radio (Manulife
Center), who I bought it from. They
cheerfully exchanged units until it
became clear that it was a problem with
the whole shipment, and when I asked
for a refund, they promptly refunded
me, with no arguements, in CASH (no
"we'll send you a check in 10 years"
junk). Highly recommended.
From the disappointed paws of:
Suk Lee
..!{decvax,allegra,ihnp4}!utcsrgv!spoo
P.S. I also decided that dbx is for the
birds: I specifically bought the
unit so that I could record some
solo piano music I have on disk.
The resulting noise pumping was
atrocious. Dolby C, here I come.